Hard Evidence. Emma Page
wake in her face. She gave him a little fleeting nod and resumed her chat. He stood to one side, discreetly waiting till she was free. In the to and fro of the hall he caught here and there an American voice, the accents of France and Germany. After a few minutes the family party went off down the front steps and Mrs Marchant came over to him.
She smiled archly as she approached. ‘I remember you,’ she greeted him before he could open his mouth. ‘You lunched here back in the spring, with Miss Dawson.’ She made an apologetic movement of her head. ‘I’m afraid I don’t remember your name.’ Lambert supplied it.
‘It’s about Miss Dawson that I’m here,’ he told her.
She broke in before he could go further. ‘I thought it might be.’ She explained that after the phone call from the Eardlows she had questioned the hotel staff in a fruitless attempt to discover if anyone could offer a guess as to Miss Dawson’s whereabouts. In the course of her questioning she had unearthed the fact that the lunch guest at Miss Dawson’s table that Friday in the spring had been a policeman, a detective sergeant; Miss Dawson had confided as much to Iris, one of the waitresses.
‘The Eardlows told me they were thinking of going to the police if they had no luck with their own inquiries,’ she added. ‘I take it Miss Dawson hasn’t turned up yet?’
‘No, I’m afraid she hasn’t.’ Mrs Marchant clearly took it for granted he was here on an official visit and he didn’t correct this impression.
She apologized for the absence of her husband who had gone into town on business. She took Lambert into the office and sat him down but she didn’t offer any refreshment. Her manner on the surface was friendly and helpful but on another level he was receiving with unmistakable clarity a totally different message: Say what you have to say and then clear off out of here. This duality in no way surprised him. He well knew that no hotel, guest house or similar establishment encourages the presence of police on its premises; nothing makes the clientele more uneasy.
He set about dispatching his business as speedily as possible. He asked if Mrs Marchant could remember anyone calling at the hotel asking for Miss Dawson during her stay, any phone calls or mail that might have caused Miss Dawson distress.
She shook her head. There had been nothing like that. There had been no trouble with any guest or member of staff, nor was she aware of any friendship Miss Dawson had struck up while she was at the hotel.
Lambert asked if she had mentioned the matter of Miss Dawson’s present whereabouts to any of the guests. She looked horrified at the idea. She fervently hoped the sergeant had no intention of questioning any of the guests. She could assure him there was nothing to be gained by such questioning. The bulk of the guests at this moment were short-stay holiday-makers or overnight bed-and-breakfasters, none of whom had set foot in the hotel while Miss Dawson was there. The long-stay residents who had been at the hotel during Miss Dawson’s stay had either left for good or were currently away on holiday or staying with relatives; one had been taken ill and had gone into hospital.
Lambert assured her he had no intention of even speaking to any of the guests, let alone attempting to question them. She gave a sigh of relief.
He asked if she knew where in Calcott village Miss Dawson had lived before she went to Millbourne but she shook her head. Miss Dawson had mentioned that she used to live in the village but she hadn’t said where. Perhaps Iris, the waitress, might know, Lambert suggested; Miss Dawson might have chatted to her in the dining room. Would it be possible to speak to her?
Mrs Marchant considered. Yes, that would be all right. ‘Iris works 10.30 to 2.30,’ she told him. She glanced at her watch. ‘She’ll be in by now. She’s never late, she lives just down the road. I’ll go and get her for you.’ She paused in the doorway. ‘Was there anything else you wanted to ask me?’
Lambert told her no. ‘Then I’ll leave you to it,’ she said briskly. ‘I’ve a dozen things to attend to. I’m sure you won’t mind seeing yourself out when you’ve spoken to Iris.’
And Iris, when she appeared a few minutes later, was able to give him Julie’s old address in the village. She had not herself known the Dawson family. ‘The cottage is quite some distance from where I live,’ she told Lambert. ‘You have to go right through the village and out the other side.’ She gave him detailed directions.
She could offer no suggestion as to where Julie might be now. Miss Dawson had often chatted to her while a meal was being served but she hadn’t mentioned future plans. When she left the hotel Iris had told her she was welcome to drop in at her house for a cup of tea any afternoon if she found it lonely in the caravan. Miss Dawson did in fact drop in and they had spent a pleasant hour in casual conversation. Miss Dawson had said nothing that might throw any light on her intentions.
‘Did she ever mention anyone she’d met while she was staying at the hotel?’ Lambert asked. ‘Some man who took an interest in her? One of the guests, perhaps? Maybe someone she’d known when she lived in the village? Or someone she chanced to meet while she was going round visiting different places in the area?’
‘If you mean some sort of romantic interest,’ Iris said, ‘she never mentioned anything like that. She didn’t seem much interested in that kind of thing.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘A pretty girl like that, you’d expect her to have boyfriends, wouldn’t you?’ She grinned. ‘I did have a shot at getting her to open up, I’m nosy that way. But I couldn’t get anything out of her. She was quite definite there wasn’t anyone.’ She grinned again. ‘Could be, of course, there’s someone she’s not letting on about – for one reason or another.’
As Lambert came down the hotel steps he heard in the distance the put-put of a motor mower. He set off towards the car park. He didn’t turn his head to look across the wide expanse of lawn to where Luke Marchant on a ride-on machine drove up and down the greensward in a beautiful, precise pattern.
The cottage where the Dawsons had lived was the first of a pair of semi-detached dwellings in a quiet, pleasant lane just outside the village. Lambert rang and knocked but got no reply. He went round to the back, knocked and rang again, without success.
In the adjoining garden a woman was picking peas. She looked across as he went up to the fence to speak to her. A motherly, cheerful-looking woman in her sixties, with an air of capable common sense. She walked over to the fence. She had rosy cheeks, bright blue eyes; thick, wavy hair, a greying chestnut, coiled up on top of her head. Lambert recognized her – and the two gardens – from the snapshots in Julie’s room at Honeysuckle Cottage. She was the woman sitting beside Julie’s mother under the apple tree.
‘You won’t get any answer next door till this evening,’ she told him. ‘They’re both out at work.’
He explained that he was a detective, trying to locate a young woman, a Miss Julie Dawson. She broke in before he could say any more. ‘I know Julie Dawson. I’ve known her since the day she was born.’ She looked up at him with concern. ‘Why are the police trying to find her? Is something wrong?’
He told her briefly about the Eardlows, the police inquiry. ‘I thought Miss Dawson might have called at her old home. She might have mentioned her plans to the people who live there now.’
‘Julie did call here, back in the spring,’ she confirmed. ‘But it was to see me, not the people next door. She never knew them; they wouldn’t be able to tell you anything. They’re not from this village. They moved in next door a month or two after Julie left here, three years ago – these are rented cottages.’
Lambert asked if she could remember exactly when Julie had called to see her.
‘She came more than once,’ she told him. ‘The first time was at the end of April, she was staying at Calcott House for the weekend. Then she called again in May, when she came back to the hotel for a longer stay.’ She paused. ‘You’d better come inside. I’ll make a cup of tea.’ She gave him a friendly